My favorite is this one, which for some reason makes me think of Doug Kass:>Dougie: "Can this news get any worse? And the Market keeps making new highs! Geez, I’m heading back to the linoleum floor with my cheap bottle of Tequila!"

>We always enjoy Doug’s reasoned arguments, and pass along the above with love.

Doug has some words in Abelson’s column this week in Barron’s:

Simultaneous bull and bear markets?

"But that they’re taking place at the same time doesn’t mean they’re otherwise equal. As Doug Kass, the redoubtable bear who runs Seabreeze Partners, points out, the bullish part of this hybrid bull-bear market, has been restricted pretty much to a relative handful of high-steppers (a number of which, as it happens, are prominent components of the Dow and the S&P 500 averages). Since Doug views everything through some expensive designer glasses darkly, he points to historic instances as demonstrating that narrow bull markets end badly.

In support of his forebodings, he cites the Nasdaq 100′s spectacular performance so far this year — last we checked, it had shot up a cool 25%, or some 448 points — as a startling illustration of how a few exceptionally strong stocks can give the impression of a big bull move. Of that roughly 25%, or nearly 450 points, gained by the Nasdaq 100, a whopping 230 points, or over half the index’s rise, has come from just three issues: Apple (135 points), Research In Motion (60 points) and Google (35 points).

No accident that each of that triumphant trio is part of the big, amorphous sector dubbed "tech". For according to that perceptive observer referred to a few paragraphs above, the torrent of dough exiting the financial shares, which for so many years ruled the investment roost but lately have been feeling the effects of the credit chill, has flowed in gobs into techs, which have been largely out of favor for quite a spell.

No accident, either, he says, that Apple, Research In Motion and Google, wear the growth label. For, he believes, the long dominance of value over growth in investor preference is in the process of changing and, if and when the market regains its footing, growth will reassert its preeminence. The emphasis, though, will not be on current momentum favorites like Apple, Research In Motion and Google, but, instead, on that vast legion of growth stocks that have conspicuously lagged in markets ever since the dot-com bust."

Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

Just looks tired to me. But the only time I ever saw a real wild bear in the woods, I was amazed at how FAST it could move (glad it was running away from me!). Bears can really fly when they want to. I was truly shocked at its speed through the brush. NO lumbering Yogi in my mind anymore.

My take on this is the finacial companies along with the Fed and Treasury are pushing us to a currency collapse.

Those of us that work and actually produce things are being marginalized. When there is minimal benifit to working anymore there will be a disaster in the real economy.

The purpose of those financial markets is efficient allocation of capital. Now, they are riding on us.

Expect the masses to start rejecting the system soon and deflation to follow.

Everything you say reeks of the begining of a deflationary spiral. I am near welcoming that as the system has become so ill. Nonproductive people who are playing investments are held up as idols. It will end badly.

It’s important to remember in periods of hyperinflation (as we’re entering now), what is important is not the nominal price change of an investment but whether or not the price is increasing as fast as the cost of the goods you eventually want to purchase with that investment. Zimbabwe is the country with the highest rate of inflation in the world. In percentage terms, the Zimbabwe stock index is up more than the Dow. However, a single roll of toilet paper (the ultimate tangible asset) costs $200,000 in Zimbabwe currency.

Bernake and Paulson will inflate the supply of paper and electronic currency fast enough that the nominal stock market averages will increase. However, they will increase far less than the cost of tangibles. That’s why I’ve stopped shorting the Dow and am going long silver instead.

margin loans at record high here in oz
Jon Nadler, senior analyst with Kitco Bullion Dealers, called the gold market “massively overbought,” given that prices have piled on $100 an ounce since Sept. 1. _*The market is “running on raw emotion and pure speculative fever at this point,” he said.
nice photo
he just looks worried for everybody
we bears are a caring lot!
*_rgds pcm

…no matter how you turn, especially the most boffo part… if you catch my drift [alt. 'drift:' General meaning or purport; tenor], and I’m sure you do with the wide panorama, view, aspect, or, dare I say, vista and perspective, you have from the tall canyonlands of Wall Street.
–

Dave said:If the market participants are really more interested in growth vs. value – why is the Russell 2000 lagging so far behind the Nasdaq. Both of them are considered “growth areas.”

Russell is about 20% financial services, like S&P, while broad Nas is only 10%. But most of the action has been in $NDX which has 0 direct exposure to financials and is where the money has been going. So, the further you stay away from financials the better, at least for now.

Dave said:If the market participants are really more interested in growth vs. value – why is the Russell 2000 lagging so far behind the Nasdaq. Both of them are considered “growth areas.”

Russell is about 20% financial services, like S&P, while broad Nas is only 10%. But most of the action has been in $NDX which has 0 direct exposure to financials and is where the money has been going. So, the further you stay away from financials the better, at least for now.

John Mauldin linked to a fascinating Forture article describing one of the shittiest RMBS created this cycle. It happens to be sponsored by the most revered bank on the street, Goldman Sachs.

It boggles my mind why Goldman would risk it’s reputation packaging and peddling this garbage to generate a few million in fees. Incidently, rather than take the fees in cash, Goldman apparently decided to retain the riskiest equity tranche as compensatin for the deal. So, ultimately no fees were ever actually realized from the deal since the equity tranche evaporated long ago.

So they risked their institutional reputation creating this crap for the fees, ultimately didn’t realize those fees, but recently printed a monstrous earnings blowout quarter in part by making directional downside bets against the crappy mortgage paper they helped create and peddle to investors around the world.

It’s 2017. Over the previous 10 years, market breadth has continued to narrow until all US stocks but one are trading at book value. All remaining equity capital has flowed into AAPL which continues to beat it’s forward guidance of “break even” every quarter and now trades for trillions a share. Singlehandedly it has continued to pull NDX and SPX to all time highs. Kudlow points out these all time highs on his TV show every night as evidence of Goldilocks 3.0 (although only 1% of the US population can still afford a television). Finally, one quarter, AAPL misses by $1.00 (which is equivalent to a penny in 2007 dollars). One analyst downgrades AAPL from “Strong Buy” to “Buy”. But everyone sells.

US markets making new highs on very narrow breath, the price of stuff a.k.a. raw materials going up, up and up, a dollar converted into a professional diver, and that barbarian relic called gold with a high not seen since 1980. (monthly close)

Gee! What’s not to like in this bull market?

Francois

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Ritholtz has been observing capital markets with a critical eye for 20 years. With a background in math & sciences and a law school degree, he is not your typical Wall St. persona. He left Law for Finance, working as a trader, researcher and strategist before graduating to asset managementRead More...

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